Visit points to goodwill with India
Wang’s talks in New Delhi show both sides openg to overcoming friction, experts says
Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s series of talks with high-level Indian officials reflected the willingness of the two Asian neighbors to overcome friction and focus on cooperation in developing bilateral ties, experts said.
It is important for the two sides to strengthen strategic communication to avoid misjudgments and patch up differences, they added.
Wang, who was in New Delhi for the 15th meeting of foreign ministers from China, Russia and India, met with Indian President Ram Nath Kovind, Indian Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj and Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Kumar Doval on Monday.
The foreign minister’s trip to India is the first by a Chinese high-level official since Indian border troops illegally trespassed into the Chinese territory in June.
During the meeting with his Indian counterpart, Wang said the border standoff between Chinese and Indian troops in China’s Donglang area strained bilateral ties this year, and lessons should be learned to avoid such incidents from recurring.
According to Wang, the China-India relationship is at a critical moment and it is important for the two countries to manage differences and maintain border peace and stability.
“If both India and China speak with one voice, the whole world will listen to them,” he said.
Wang told Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Kumar Doval that China and India should make a correct choice in the development of relations and properly handle historic problems and some specific issues without politicizing and complicating them to hamper the development of China-India relations.
The Indian side also said that the two countries share more common ground than differences, thus the two sides should prevent differences from evolving into disputes and keep disputes from deteriorating into conflicts.
India is willing to restore all bilateral mechanisms and arrangements and push forward cooperation between the two countries in all fields, they said.
Fu Xiaoqiang, an expert on South Asian studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said recent incidents, including the Donglang standoff, showed that India has strategically misjudged bilateral ties, putting conflict ahead of cooperation.
“Now that China has proposed the direction, that is, focusing on cooperation, India’s attitude matters regarding the future development of China-India relationship,” he said.
Sun Shihai, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said both China and India share common interests in various areas, including trade and economy.